Oprah Winfrey

﻿“Queen of All Media”﻿

Oprah is known to be the most influential woman in the world.Oprah is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist.Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi, raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14. She lost her son in pregnancy. An avid reader and great student, she landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. She was so good with her delivery, she soon got transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. After boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated. She did this by reinventing her show to focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. She is often praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history and is currently North America's only black billionaire. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard.